Books: Life and Remains of John Clare

J >> J. L. Cherry >> Life and Remains of John Clare

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

The most lamentable consequence of the roystering life which Clare
led with the gardeners at Burghley was, that he acquired a fondness
for strong drink with which he had to struggle, not always
successfully, for years. That he did struggle manfully is evident
from his correspondence, and at length, acting upon the advice of Dr.
Darling, a London physician, who for a long time generously
prescribed for him without fee or reward beyond the poet's grateful
thanks, he abstained altogether. It will be seen hereafter that in
all probability Dr. Darling's advice was given upon the supposition
that Clare was able to procure a sufficient supply of nourishing
food, when unhappily he was almost literally starving himself, in
order that his family might not go hungry.

On returning from Nottinghamshire Clare took again to the work of a
farm labourer, and the poetic fervour which had abated in the
uncongenial society of Burghley once more manifested itself. After
taking infinite pains to that end, he had the satisfaction of
convincing his father and mother that his poetry was of somewhat
greater merit than the half-penny ballads sold at the village feast;
but his neighbours could not bring themselves to approve John's
course of life, and they adopted various disagreeable modes of
showing that they thought he was a mightily presumptuous fellow. His
shy manners and his habit of talking to himself as he walked led some
to set him down as a lunatic; others ridiculed his enthusiasm, or
darkly whispered suspicions of unhallowed intercourse with evil
spirits. This treatment, operating upon a sensitive mind and a body
debilitated both by labour and scanty and unwholesome food, had the
natural effect of robbing him of hope and buoyancy of spirits. In a
fit of desperation he enlisted in the militia, and with other
Helpstone youths was marched off to Oundle, a small town lying
between Peterborough and Northampton. He remained at Oundle for a few
weeks, at the end of which time the regiment was disbanded and Clare
returned to Helpstone, carrying with him "Paradise Lost" and "The
Tempest," which he had bought at a broker's shop in Oundle. This
brings us down to 1812, when Clare was nineteen years old.

Little is known of Clare's manner of life for the next four or five
years, excepting that he continued to work as a farm labourer
whenever work could be found, that he tried camp life with some
gipsies, and speedily had his romantic ideas of its attractiveness
rudely dispelled, that he had a love passage or two with girls of the
village and that he accumulated a large number of poems of varying
degrees of excellence.

In 1817 he obtained employment as a lime burner at Bridge Casterton,
in the neighbouring county of Rutland, where he earned about ten
shillings per week. The labour was very severe, but Clare was
contented, and during his stay at Bridge Casterton several of the
best among his earlier poems were produced. It was probably this
period of his life which he had in his mind when he said:--

I found the poems in the fields,
And only wrote them down.

In the course of this year 1817 Clare fell in love with Martha
Turner, the daughter of a cottage farmer living at a place called
Walkherd Lodge, and this is the maiden who after the lapse of three
or four years became his wife. "She was a fair girl of eighteen,
slender, with regular features, and pretty blue eyes." Clare entered
into this new engagement with passionate ardour, but the courtship
ultimately took a more prosaic turn, and having once done so, there
was little in the worthy but illiterate and matter-of-fact "Patty" to
elevate the connection into the region of poetry. In his
correspondence Clare more than once hints at want of sympathy on the
part of those of his own household, and at one time domestic
differences, for which there is reason to think he was mainly
responsible, and which occurred when he was mentally in a very morbid
condition, caused him to contemplate suicide. It is due, however, to
the memory of "Patty" to say that Clare's latest volume of poems
("The Rural Muse," 1835) contains an address "To P * *" which is
honourable to the constancy of both parties. It is as follows:--

Fair was thy bloom when first I met
Thy summer's maiden-blossom;
And thou art fair and lovely yet,
And dearer to my bosom.
O thou wert once a wilding flower,
All garden flowers excelling,
And still I bless the happy hour
That led me to thy dwelling.

Though nursed by field, and brook, and wood,
And wild in every feature,
Spring ne'er unsealed a fairer bud,
Nor found a blossom sweeter.
Of all the flowers the spring hath met,
And it has met with many,
Thou art to me the fairest yet,
And loveliest of any.

Though ripening summers round thee bring
Buds to thy swelling bosom,
That wait the cheering smiles of spring
To ripen into blossom.
These buds shall added blessings be,
To make our loves sincerer,
For as their flowers resemble thee
They'll make thy memory dearer.

And though thy bloom shall pass away,
By winter overtaken,
Thoughts of the past will charms display,
And many joys awaken.
When time shall every sweet remove,
And blight thee on my bosom,
Let beauty fade!--to me, my love,
Thou'lt ne'er be out of blossom!

THE POET TO THE PUBLIC

Although Clare's engagement to Martha Turner added to his
perplexities, it was really the immediate moving cause of his
determination to be up and doing. He resolved at length to publish a
collection of his poems, and consulted Mr. Henson, a printer, of
Market Deeping, on the subject. Mr. Henson offered to print three
hundred copies of a prospectus for a sovereign, but he firmly
declined the invitation of the poet to draw up that document. Clare
resolutely set to work to save the money for the printer, and soon
succeeded; but then there was the difficulty with regard to the
composition of the address to the public. He could write poetry; that
he knew; he had done so already, and he felt plenty more within; but
prose he had never yet attempted, and the task was a really grievous
one. This is his own account of his trouble, given in the
introduction to the "Village Minstrel:"--

"I have often dropped down five or six times, to plan an address. In
one of these musings my poor thoughts lost themselves in rhyme.
Taking a view, as I sat beneath the shelter of a woodland hedge, of
my parents' distresses at home, of my labouring so hard and so vainly
to get out of debt, and of my still added perplexities of ill-timed
love, striving to remedy all to no purpose, I burst out into an
exclamation of distress, 'What is life?' and instantly recollecting
that such a subject would be a good one for a poem, I hastily
scratted down the two first verses of it, as it stands, and continued
my journey to work." When he got to the limekiln he could not work
for thinking of the address which he had to write, "so I sat me down
on a lime scuttle," he says, "and out with my pencil, and when I had
finished I started off for Stamford with it." There he posted the
address to Mr. Henson. It ran as follows:--

"Proposals for publishing by subscription a Collection of Original
Trifles on Miscellaneous Subjects, Religious and Moral, in verse, by
John Clare, of Helpstone. The public are requested to observe that
the Trifles humbly offered for their candid perusal can lay no claim
to eloquence of composition: whoever thinks so will be deceived, the
greater part of them being juvenile productions, and those of later
date offsprings of those leisure intervals which the short remittance
from hard and manual labour sparingly afforded to compose them. It is
to be hoped that the humble situation which distinguishes their
author will be some excuse in their favour, and serve to make an
atonement for the many inaccuracies and imperfections that will be
found in them. The least touch from the iron hand of Criticism is
able to crush them to nothing, and sink them at once to utter
oblivion. May they be allowed to live their little day and give
satisfaction to those who may choose to honour them with a perusal,
they will gain the end for which they were designed and the author's
wishes will be gratified. Meeting with this encouragement it will
induce him to publish a similar collection of which this is offered
as a specimen."

The specimen was the "Sonnet to the Setting Sun," in which a
comparison is drawn between sunset and the death of a Christian. The
address was too artless, too honest, and the people of the Fens,
taking Clare at his word, subscribed for exactly seven copies! The
state of excitement, caused by mingled hopes and fears, in which
Clare was at this time may be seen from the following extract from a
letter to Mr. Henson:--"Good God! How great are my expectations! What
hopes do I cherish! As great as the unfortunate Chatterton's were, on
his first entrance into London, which is now pictured in my mind.
And, undoubtedly, like him I may be building castles in the air, but
time will prove it. Please to do all in your power to procure
subscribers, as your address will be looked upon better than that of
a clown. When two are got you may print it, if you please; so do your
best."

A FRIEND IN NEED

But now fresh troubles came upon Clare in rapid succession. He
quarrelled with Patty and was forbidden the house by her parents. He
was discharged by his master on the probably well-grounded plea that
he was writing poetry and distributing his address when he ought to
be at work, and he was soon without a penny in the world. He returned
to Helpstone and tried to get employment as a day labourer, but
failed; the farmers, who had heard of the publishing project,
considering that "he did not know his place." In this extremity he
was compelled to apply for and accept relief from the parish. This
was in the autumn of 1818, and Clare was twenty-five years old.
Henson declined to begin the printing of the book unless Clare
advanced the sum of L15, and this being impossible the negotiation
fell through. Clare shortly afterwards, with the two-fold object of
finding employment and obtaining relief from mental distraction by
change of scene, was on the point of setting out for Yorkshire, when
a copy of his prospectus fell under the notice of Mr. Edward Drury, a
bookseller, of Stamford. Mr. Drury called upon Clare at his own home,
and with difficulty induced him to show him a few of his manuscript
poems. Having read, among others, "My love, thou art a nosegay
sweet," he was unable to conceal his gratification, and told Clare,
to the poor poet's intense delight, that if he would procure the
return of the poems in the possession of Mr. Henson he would publish
a volume and give Clare the profits after deducting expenses.

On this footing the poet became intimate with Mr. Drury, who
frequently entertained him at his house. His letters to Clare are
cordial, and disclose an honest desire to be of service to him, on
which account it is the more to be regretted that, owing to a dispute
which afterwards took place between Mr. Drury and Mr. Taylor, Clare's
London publisher, Clare rather ungraciously separated himself from
his early friend. He was clearly indebted to Mr. Drury in the first
instance for the opportunity of emerging from obscurity into public
notice, and also for introductions to Mr. Taylor and Mr. Octavius
Gilchrist, both men of influence in literary circles, and both of
whom took an active and genuine interest in the young poet. Mr.
Taylor, as has been already stated, became his editor and publisher,
and remained his faithful friend until after Clare had been lost to
public view within the walls of a lunatic asylum.

Towards the end of 1819 Clare met Mr. Taylor at the house of Mr.
Gilchrist, in Stamford, and the latter gentleman gave the following
account of the interview in a patronizing and not very judicious
article which appeared in the "London Magazine" for January, 1820:--

"Mr. Taylor had seen Clare, for the first time, in the morning; and
he doubted much if our invitation would be accepted by the rustic
poet, who had now just returned from his daily labour, shy, and
reserved, and disarrayed as he was. In a few minutes, however, Clare
announced his arrival by a hesitating knock at the door--'between a
single and a double rap'--and immediately upon his introduction he
dropped into a chair. Nothing could exceed the meekness, simplicity,
and diffidence with which he answered the various enquiries
concerning his life and habits, which we mingled with subjects
calculated or designed to put him much at his ease. Of music he
expressed himself passionately fond, and had learnt to play a little
on the violin, in the humble hope of obtaining a trifle at the annual
feasts in the neighbourhood, and at Christmas. The tear stole
silently down the cheek of the rustic poet as one of our little party
sang 'Auld Robin Gray.'"

Mr. Martin gives a somewhat different account of this interview. He
states that the poet took decidedly too much wine, and that while
under its influence he wrote some doggerel verses which Mr. Gilchrist
had the cruelty to print in the article intended formally to
introduce Clare to the notice of the English public. Mr. Gilchrist
was an accomplished and warm-hearted man, and it was by his desire
that Hilton, the Royal Academical, painted Clare's portrait for
exhibition in London, but he presumed too much upon his social
superiority, and his judgment was at fault in supposing that the poet
was all meekness and diffidence. On one occasion he took him sharply
to task for associating with a Nonconformist minister, and Clare
warmly resented this interference and for a time absented himself
from Mr. Gilchrist's house. A conciliation, however, soon took place,
and the poet and the learned grocer of Stamford were fast friends
until the death of the latter in 1823.

"HEARKEN UNTO A VERSER"

Clare's first volume was brought out by Taylor and Hessey in January,
1820. It was entitled "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery,"
and contained an introduction from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In this
preface the peculiarities of Clare's genius were described with force
and propriety, his perseverance in the face of great discouragements
was commended, and the sympathy and support of the public were
invited in the following passage:--

"No poet of our country has shown greater ability under circumstances
so hostile to its development. And all this is found here without any
of those distressing and revolting alloys which too often debase the
native worth of genius, and make him who was gifted with powers to
command admiration live to be the object of contempt or pity. The
lower the condition of its possessor the more unfavourable,
generally, has been the effect of genius on his life. That this has
not been the case with Clare may, perhaps, be imputed to the absolute
depression of his fortune. When we hear the consciousness of
possessing talent, and the natural irritability of the poetic
temperament, pleaded in extenuation of the follies and vices of men
in high life, let it be accounted no mean praise to such a man as
Clare that with all the excitements of their sensibility to his
station he has preserved a fair character amid dangers which
presumption did not create and difficulties which discretion could
not avoid. In the real troubles of life, when they are not brought on
by the misconduct of the individual, a strong mind acquires the power
of righting itself after each attack, and this philosophy, not to
call it by a better name, Clare possesses. If the expectations of a
'better life,' which he cannot help indulging, should all be
disappointed by the coldness with which this volume may be received,
he can 'put up with distress, and be content.' In one of his letters
he says, 'If my hopes don't succeed the hazard is not of much
consequence: if I fall, I am advanced at no great distance from my
low condition: if I sink for want of friends my old friend Necessity
is ready to help me as before. It was never my fortune as yet to meet
advancement from friendship: my fate has ever been hard labour among
the most vulgar and lowest conditions of men, and very small is the
pittance hard labour allows me, though I always toiled even beyond my
strength to obtain it.' To see a man of talent struggling under great
adversity with such a spirit must surely excite in every generous
heart the wish to befriend him. But if it be otherwise, and he should
be doomed to remediless misery,

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play,
For some must watch, while some sleep,--
Thus runs the world away."

Towards the end of January 1820, the Rev Mr. Holland of Northborough,
the minister already referred to, called upon Clare with the joyful
news that his poems had been published, and that the volume was a
great success. Next day a messenger arrived from Stamford with an
invitation to the poet to meet Mr. Drury and Mr. Gilchrist. They
confirmed the favourable report made by Mr. Holland, and at length
Clare had an opportunity of seeing the book which had caused him so
many anxious days and sleepless nights. He made no attempt to conceal
the honest pride he felt on receiving the congratulations of his
friends, and acknowledged his obligation to Mr. Taylor for the
editorial pains he had taken to prepare his manuscripts for the
press, but he was deeply mortified at the tone of the "Introduction"
in which Mr. Taylor dwelt, perhaps unconsciously, on Clare's poverty
as constituting his chief claim to public notice.

The success of the "Poems" could scarcely be overstated. The eager
curiosity of the public led to the first edition being exhausted in a
few days, and a second was promptly announced. "The Gentleman's
Magazine," the "New Monthly Magazine," the "Eclectic Review," the
"Anti-Jacobin Review," the "London Magazine," and many other
periodicals, welcomed the new poet with generous laudation. Following
these came the "Quarterly Review," then under the editorship of the
trenchant Gifford. To the astonishment of the reading public, the
"Quarterly," which about this time "killed poor Keats," admitted a
genial article on the rustic bard, and gave him the following
excellent advice:--

"We counsel, we entreat him to continue something of his present
occupations, to attach himself to a few in the sincerity of whose
friendship he can confide, and to suffer no temptations of the idle
and the dissolute to seduce him from the quiet scenes of his youth
(scenes so congenial to his taste) to the hollow and heartless
society of cities, to the haunts of men who would court and flatter
him while his name was new, and who, when they had contributed to
distract his attention and impair his health, would cast him off
unceremoniously to seek some other novelty. Of his again encountering
the difficulties and privations he lately experienced there is no
danger. Report speaks of honourable and noble friends already
secured: with the aid of these, the cultivation of his own excellent
talents, and a meek but firm reliance on that good Power by whom
these were bestowed, he may, without presumption, anticipate a rich
reward in the future for the evils endured in the morning of his
life."

The estimate formed by the writer of the liberality of Clare's
patrons was exaggerated, and instead of there being no danger of his
ever again having to encounter difficulties and privations he was
scarcely ever free from them until the crowning privation had placed
him beyond their influence.

EXAMPLES

The "Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery" were about seventy
in number, including twenty-one sonnets. The volume opened with an
apostrophe to Helpstone, in the manner of Goldsmith, and among the
longer pieces were "The Fate of Amy," "Address to Plenty in Winter,"
"Summer Morning," "Summer Evening," and "Crazy Nell." The minor
pieces included the sonnet "To the Primrose," already quoted, "My
love, thou art a Nosegay sweet," and "What is Life?", a reflective
poem produced under circumstances with which the reader has been made
acquainted. The compositions last named are inserted here as examples
of Clare's style at this early period of his career:--

MY LOVE, THOU ART A NOSEGAY SWEET.

My love, thou art a nosegay sweet,
My sweetest flower I'll prove thee,
And pleased I pin thee to my breast,
And dearly do I love thee.

And when, my nosegay, thou shalt fade,
As sweet a flower thou'lt prove thee;
And as thou witherest on my breast
For beauty past I'll love thee.

And when, my nosegay, thou shalt die,
And heaven's flower shalt prove thee,
My hopes shall follow to the sky,
And everlasting love thee.

WHAT IS LIFE?

And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
And happiness?--a bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

What are vain hopes?--The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem,--and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.

And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark, mysterious name of horrid sound?--
A long and lingering sleep, the weary crave.
And Peace? where can its happiness abound?
No where at all, save heaven, and the grave.
Then what is Life?--When stripp'd of its disguise,
A thing to be desir'd it cannot be,
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'T is but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.

The following lines in the "Address to Plenty" have always been
admired for their Doric strength and simplicity, and the vivid
realism of the scene which they depict:--

Toiling in the naked fields,
Where no bush a shelter yields,
Needy Labour dithering stands,
Beats and blows his numbing hands,
And upon the crumping snows
Stamps, in vain, to warm his toes.
Leaves are fled, that once had power
To resist a summer shower;
And the wind so piercing blows,
Winnowing small the drifting snows;

Clare used at first, without hesitation, the provincialisms of his
native county, but afterwards, as his mind matured, he saw the
propriety of adopting the suggestions which Charles Lamb and other
friends made to him on this subject, and his style gradually became
more polished, until in the "Rural Muse" scarcely any provincialisms
were employed, and the glossary of the earlier volumes was therefore
unnecessary.

The article in the "Quarterly" was, with the exception, perhaps, of
the concluding paragraph just quoted, from the pen of Clare's friend
and neighbour, Mr. Gilchrist, who wrote to Clare on the subject in
the following jocular strain:--

"What's to be done now, Maester? Here's a letter from William Gifford
saying I promised him an article on one John Clare, for the
'Quarterly Review.' Did I do any such thing? Moreover, he says he has
promised Lord Radstock, and if I know him, as he thinks I do, I know
that the Lord will persecute him to the end. This does not move me
much. But he adds, 'Do not fail me, dear Gil, for I count upon you.
Tell your simple tale, and it may do the young bard good.' Think you
so? Then it must be set about. But how to weave the old web anew--how
to hoist the same rope again and again--how to continue the interest
to a twice-told tale? Have you committed any arsons or murders that
you have not yet revealed to me? If you have, out with 'em straight,
that I may turn 'em to account before you are hanged; and as you will
not come here to confess, I must hunt you up at Helpstone; so look to
it, John Clare, for ere it be long, and before you expect me, I shall
be about your eggs and bacon. I have had my critical cap on these two
days, and the cat-o'-nine-tails in my hands, and soundly I'll flog
you for your sundry sins, John Clare, John Clare!

Given under my hand the tenth of the fourth month, anno Domini 1820."

A LION AT LAST

Following close upon the complimentary criticisms in the principal
monthlies, the condescension of the "Quarterly" completed the little
triumph, and Clare's verses became the fashion of the hour. One of
his poems was set to music by Mr. Henry Corri, and sung by Madame
Vestris at Covent Garden. Complimentary letters, frequently in rhyme,
flowed in upon him, presents of books were brought by nearly every
coach, [2] and influential friends set about devising plans (of which
more presently) to rescue him from poverty and enable him to devote
at all events a portion of his time to the Muses. On the other hand,
visitors from idle curiosity were far more numerous than was
agreeable, and he was pestered with applications for autographs and
poems for ladies' albums, with patronage and advice from total
strangers, with tracts from well-meaning clergymen, and with
invitations to lionizing parties. One of these communications was in
its way a unique production, and for the entertainment of the reader
a portion of it is here introduced:--

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15